Frequently Asked Questions

Akubo is an easy to use web-based database for managing contacts, donations, sales, tasks, marketing and fundraising campaigns, email marketing, snail mail and more … all together in one place.

Who is Akubo?

Akubo is owned and operated by Percworks, Inc., a small innovative tech company in Howard County, Maryland.

Akubo originally started as an in-house project developed in partnership with Tapulanga Foundation and Percworks in mid-2007 to create an easy to use database we can access from anywhere using any computer. In early 2008 we started offering Akubo to other small organizations that were looking for an easy to use online database.

Established in 2003, Percworks serves more than 1,500 customers providing computer tech support, consulting, training and web applications development services. Robin Abello, founder of Percworks, brings more than 15 years of experience in commercial web hosting & applications development and designing & buildling scalable network infrastructures.

What can we use Akubo for?

Akubo can be used in various ways depending on your small organization's needs.

Akubo is especially designed for small organizations so it's affordable, easy to use and less complicated than other web products designed for medium and larger organizations. We also designed it to be a turn-key database solution so you can be up and running within 2 minutes.

What are the benefits of using Akubo vs. desktop-based databases?

- Web-based databases can be used from any computer whether it's a PC, Mac or Linux.
-
There is no need to install from a CD or download the software.
-
No yearly purchase (and installation) of upgrades.
-
No worrying about backups.
-
It works from any location so if you're at Mom's and you didn't bring your laptop, just use her computer to access your Akubo database. If you're travelling, just go to a local cafe or library and use their computers to access your Akubo database. And if you're on the road with your iPhone or your Blackberry, you can access your Akubo database.
- And if
you want multiple users to access your database, Akubo is already built for that. With desktop-based products you'll have to setup a network, possibly even a database server, and it becomes even more complex if you need to share access across a WAN (wide area network), setup firewalls and VPNs. Akubo was initially built for a small non-profit that has volunteers and staff working from Asia and North America, so it works just as well for teams that are spread across geographical locations, or teams that are in the same office.

Why is Akubo designed especially for small organizations?

We have a special affinity towards small organizations because we are a small business ourself and the non-profit we initially designed Akubo for is also a small organization. Small organizations (especially those with less than 10 employees) have a very important role in most economies and are generally the top job providers.

Employees and owners generally wear different hats in a small organization so we designed Akubo to be simple and easy to use, yet powerful and flexible enough to serve the growing and often changing needs within. Small organizations also have a general desire to forge long-lasting relationships with their customers and clients and Akubo's goal is to help build those relationships and create the building blocks for effective and responsive customer support and communications.

Does Akubo work from any computer?

Akubo works from a computer web browser so it doesn't really matter if you're on Windows, Mac or Linux. We've tested this on Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, AOL Explorer, Opera and Google Chrome.

How many login user accounts can we create? How many contacts can we store on Akubo?

Can we import (transfer) our contacts data from our email accounts and/or Outlook or similar software?

You can import your contacts from Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail / Windows Live and AOL.

You can also import your contacts data from Outlook (or similar software) by exporting your contacts list into a csv file. Once it's in csv format, you can easily upload and import your data into your Akubo account database.

For other types of data, contact us for customized data import (transfer) services.

How often are our Akubo records backed-up?

Your Akubo records are backed up everyday and these are done onsite and off-site for redundancy. You also have the option of downloading regular backups of your Akubo data in CSV (viewable via Microsoft Excel) format.

Can we restrict access to our Akubo account beyond usernames and passwords?

Yes, you can further restrict access to your Akubo account by IP addresses. You can specify specific (or a range) of allowed IP addresses and denied IP addresses.